Grape Update

I have been keeping an eye on the grape vines I discovered when I cleared all that brush away. This is how they looked yesterday....

Of the original two small bunches I found, one was almost entirely pecked away. The other was as you see in the photo. I was surprised that they ripened so quickly.

Considering that I only had one bunch left, I was concerned about not losing the remaining grapes to birds or other critters. These look perfect but the big question was, are they ripe yet? I decided to take a chance and picked them.

Unfortunately they are still pretty tart, which means I need to learn how to tell when they are ready to harvest! I do have a second chance however, as afterward I discovered a few more small bunches.....

Hopefully I can get these before the birds do. :)

Copyright by Leigh 8 July 2009 at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

My Summer Kitchen

I love our back porch.

It is neither heated nor cooled and has both screens and hand crank louvered windows (jalousies). It serves as a laundry room, mud room, and extra storage. What I really love however, is that it allows me to have a summer kitchen after a fashion.

I use my double burner hot plate for most of my stove top cooking. There's enough room on the table for me to plug in anything else I wish: electric skillet, bread machine, slow cooker, etc.

My toaster/rotisserie/convection oven resides on top of my dryer, and I use it for heating/toasting/baking everything except pizza. This is because my pizza stone is too large to fit!

And of course we use our charcoal grill a lot. Ours is small, but it's usually only the two of us anyway. DH makes enough coals to cook two meals. Yesterday we cooked burgers. While we enjoyed those, we let a turkey breast cook, which will give us meat for the next couple of days.

The advantage of a summer kitchen is in keeping the house cooler. Cooking and especially canning add a lot of heat and humidity to the inside environment, which in turn make cooling the house much harder and the AC bill much higher!

I love our back porch.

Copyright by Leigh 5 July 2009 at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Better Late Than Never

My garden post motivated me to get a soil test kit from the county cooperative extension office. Having a soil test has been on my "to do" list and it seemed silly to put it off any longer.

To perform a soil test, samples are taken from a dozen or so places in the area to be tested. All are supposed to be six to eight inches below the surface of the ground. These are mixed together in a clean plastic container and then placed in the little paper bag provided by the cooperative extension office. I can return it either to their office or a designated local feed store.

In my state, the test costs $6, and the results will be mailed to my home. They will include pH, buffer pH, amount of lime needed, and measurable amounts of phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, calcium, zinc, manganese, copper, sodium, and boron. It also measures CEC or cation exchange capacity, but I don't have a clue as to what that is.

The one good thing about doing this so late in the growing season is that almost everyone else's testing is already done, so I shouldn't have too long a wait for the results.

Copyright by Leigh 2 July 2009 at http://www.5acresandadream.com/